Dan, I think you're approaching this totally wrong, it's not about trying to reason here, that's just a mask for the actual event. Humans just are not good at handling core conceptual shifts, it makes them nervous. Think back to Galileo's time, or Spinoza's, these guys actually couldn't even talk about what they understood without fear of getting killed by the state/christian combine. Even today, climate scientists consistently miscalculate the worst case scenarios (ie, the worst cases are consistently proving to be the actual case, which means they are being consistently conservative), out of, I believe, fear of the actual reality of what actually resolving the true worst cases actually will mean to our modern systems of exploitative raw material consumption. Have you ever looked at the convoluted systems evolved to explain material observations of how the solar system actually worked back in those days? Those guys who generated those were simply invested, for whatever reason, in the status quo, but in the end, their models did not matter because observed empirical reality made them not matter. Just as Roges somewhat frantic efforts to regenerate realities more in keeping with his emotional needs will not matter. Now if that's not enough to make him signup I don't know what is, lol.

When a way of life is threatened, there are a few ways of approaching the problem, most people try to ignore it until it can't be ignored any more. Some create elaborate constructs demonstrating how the changes are not actually happening. This is just a basic human thing, fear, etc, attachment to an image of the past and avoidance of a future that makes them nervous. This process gets increasingly weird when there are also large interests at stake, back then it was the churches control over how we were to see the world, today's, industrial globalized production systems run by people with a lot of interest in not adapting. If you understand modern economics you understand what moving away from 'growth' as a system actually means, so it's hardly surprising that those who personally profit from such systems resist that change with such vigor. But you can't eat money in the end, you can't drink it, and you can't generate heat with it, that requires raw materials. And those raw materials are being used up at stunning rates. Just came across this one: we have released about 25% of total CO2 since industrialism started in the last decade or so. As well as produced 25% of the products generated. Obviously that rate of increase simply cannot continue, and it will not continue.

Makes little difference I'd guess, just give it another 50 years and these voices will just be weird historical footnotes, of little interest to anyone, since most people will be dealing with the daily reality of the cnanges that are happening now.

Rather than trying to reason so much against an elaborate attempt to not see reality, a reality increasingly well understood by those who study and grasp the science, and losing so much sewing and research time, simply marvel at the stubbornness of the human mind when faced with core changes to its material environment. Going back in time and reading the stages of this process is also amusing.

But in the end, except for a few types who simply refuse to bend to the change, like flat earthers today, really, it's a futile excercise, nature will continue on in her path, mother earth will continue to do what it does when it gets damaged, she will churn, she will writhe, too fast changing systems will create chaos in unpredictable ways. And humans will continue to resist the tidal wave of change that comes during such eras, as they have always done. So just view this as a way to see how humans (fail to) react rationally when matters call for such reactions. You can see the same behaviors I'm sure if you study ant colonies or other groups like that, although probably with less attempts to cling to the status quo.

I don't, by the way, blame people at all for not wanting to face this change, looking at the edge of growth based, raw material exploiting economic/productive systems is very scary, particularly in a culture so deeply dependent on that, which the first world certainly is. So the grounds for fear and trembling are very real, it's just that there are different ways of handling that, some prefer to move forward into the future, others want to try to cling to the past, but that simply does not work when you're talking about material, core, fundamental ecological changes. But humans have always had this divide, I think, between those who adapted societies, and those who followed the adaptations, and those, hopelessly attached to the old ways, which become non viable, resisting changes at every step, futile a gesture as that is. It's not hard for me to pick what group I want to belong to, that's for sure.

Thanks for your excellent contribution Harold. Don't worry though, I'm not reasoning with the guy, I'm just throwing stuff out there......the oxygen thing is a different angle. It's all practice for communicating about these things - you do communicate about these things don't you, or are you advocating a soft pithy silence?

'Roges Regenerative Realities' We all like that! RRR! Argh!

It looks to me like you are just trying to diminish my joy of being mentioned on Rog's website.

Rog T has a posting he wants to make, but he is being held up by the spam block. I could post it for him, but I think it better if he posts it. However, if this goes on for too long I may have to rescue him :-)

Dan, no, feel the joy, please, heh, don't let me rain on your parade. A pithy silence is of course generally best when one is talking to someone frantically trying to spin webs that let them believe what they want, while pretending to be reasoning beings, when it comes to serious people who actually want to either stop it, or at least understand it, that would be an interesting discussion, that's why I read realclimate.org, of course, rather than this thread, for example, when I want to see what's going on in recent developments. Also always fun for debunking the latest nonsense that is spewed back by pseudoresearchers and bloggers. But I'm definitely interested in the big picture, it certainly doesn't get much bigger than this when it comes to humanity and its ways of breaking things that were working well.

Roger C, I'm trying to drum up some new memberships for bpl, if you post a response, it will ruin that plan, can't you feel the tension, that querying mind asking, man, saving that $25 really worth not being able to respond, here, now, in small bite sized chunks, with careful treatments of each quote, or misquote, or misunderstood quote, following?!? This could tip the balance!! Let them memberships flow in like fine wines at a good dinner.

Jerry, yes, except even more so, since this issue is even bigger. But yes, the trail for that type of corporate pseudo-science is easy to track, and the practitioners are held in far more contempt, intellectually speaking, among serious scientists than most people realize, which I believe was one of the sub texts around those leaked emails. If I cared, I'd track certain 'critics' over time and watch how they uncritically repeated that pseudoscience year in and year out, pretending that no pattern exists in that behavior, but really, it's the behavior that's interesting, and that behavior is the actual thing we have to get around to make some headway against these issues, if we can. Exxon funding their people embedded in Stanford was particularly disgusting, so they could then pretend that the research was actually coming out of Stanford. Too bad that was exposed as the fraud it was, that was a good one.

Now, all you have to do is go back, and find the people who were jumping on that bandwagon and repeating that pseudoscience, and you get a pretty good idea, but it's just not worth the time, to be honest, it's boring, predictable, and, sadly, totally pointless, since people don't make decisions based on words in general, they do it for other reasons, some of which I alluded to above. Even brain science has finally started figuring that fact out, even though it's been known and understood for thousands of years among those who thought about it, easy to spot, just a bit of observation and pattern detection.

The actual debate, now that's interesting, and so are the people doing the actual research, in that world, of course, none of this nonsense exists, they know exactly what's going on because they are in it. My favorite was a book by a woman who traveled North and interviewed various climate scientists, and the locals, there it was so totally unambiguous that it really helps put a light on the people frantically trying to cover the story, or minimize it, or whatever it is they do, for whatever reasons. Personally I don't care, they aren't part of the solution, nor will they ever be part of it, but they have always been with us, and I assume that behavior had some actual function in tribes way back in the day, or it wouldn't be so common.

Rog, if you want to debate, feel free to join the good folks over at realclimate, they are pretty good at it, and sort of like doing it, though of course the level there is very high, so you have to be careful.

The pbs documentary shows, in a 'fair and balanced' way, pretty much the methods big money / fossil fuel industry is using to generate the 'doubt' that must then be considered as part of the 'debate'. Take special note of the secret new funding group formed to avoid the public awareness of the Koch brothers, Exxon, etc, that is going to take more research to uncover the roots of, but as Perot said so many years ago now, follow the money...

The right wing, fossil fuel extraction oriented part of the US political scene is using its ability to generate blatant lies and propaganda via rightwing 'think tanks', and other methods, very well, they deserve credit on the pure level of good propaganda generation, fear, uncertainty and doubt raised to a science almost, too bad they can't use that skill for anything positive, but that's life I guess.

Sadly, the one thing they simply cannot grasp, or do not care to, is that the earth/planet doesn't care about the ability of an economic set of interests to mislead and deceive, the planet will keep warming, and climate disasters will keep getting worse, until even the densest follower of this fake science will realize that their ecosystem, farm, house, etc, are getting slammed in a way that never happened before.

The documentary is well worth watching, you can see just what type of scum generate this, although actually pbs really held back a lot, my guess is they were / are scared of losing their funding, and so really moderate their statements. But the documentary is fine, it shows what a tiny group actually is generating the 'skeptic' garbage, and what sleaze bags they are. Well it shows, if you watch with open eyes, but it does give them every chance to show that they aren't scumbags. One realclimate commenter noted with some surprise how little the guys tried to hide, that's because it's not a rational debate they are pushing, so they don't actually care at all to be revealed, the buttons they are pushing are emotional, obviously, since the reason based minds understand that the science is moving in one and only one direction, and that debate and uncertainty are only occuring in questions of how fast, how bad, how much sea level rise, how quickly do the icecaps melt.

As I noted above, the only actually interesting question remaining is the methods of emotional manipulation, and how that happens, and why. And that is an interesting question, but, I'm guessing here, a few more massive weather events that are worsened by climate heating, like Sandy, the midwest drought, etc, and other global events that should start impacting actual global food supplies, insurance problems (at some point, for example, you will not be able to obtain affordable flood insurance, or hurricane insurance), etc, will make the effort to use words and emotional manipulation unable to really push back the awareness that all is not as it should be in oz.

I'd say a few more years of midwest drought, a few more 'once in a hundred years' hurricanes, should do it. You can, after all, only use the term 'once in a hundred years' so often before people begin to note that it was only 3 years ago that the last one hit.... Let's see, was it last summer or the one before, record Russian drought, fires, huge crop failures, sounds familiar no?

My guess is that, manipulated and emotionally unable to grasp as the middle american base is, at some point they will see with their own eyes that things are changing, and not for the better. It's too bad they have to wait until their farms blow away to see what's going on, but I guess some people just don't do well with abstractions that they can't touch.

By the way, that Snider character is a special breed of intellectual wh@re, he seems to sell himself to every single major cause out there over the years, I'm sure that is what he makes his living off of at this point. Must be hard to get real phd's who actually understand the science to join their ranks though, so can't blame them for that.

"As I noted above, the only actually interesting question remaining is the methods of emotional manipulation, and how that happens, and why. And that is an interesting question, but, I'm guessing here, a few more massive weather events that are worsened by climate heating, like Sandy, the midwest drought, etc, and other global events that should start impacting actual global food supplies, insurance problems (at some point, for example, you will not be able to obtain affordable flood insurance, or hurricane insurance), etc, will make the effort to use words and emotional manipulation unable to really push back the awareness that all is not as it should be in oz."

The unfortunate thing is that by the time enough people catch on to force real change, it will very likely be too late. Indeed, many in the scientific community feel it may already be too late to avoid major disruption of the biosphere, i.e. state change. The part that has always puzzled me is that the people manipulating the scientific data and the public also have children. The dissonance is profoundly frightening.

They are sociopaths, by any definition of the word, short term greed and status over all other concerns, it's pretty simple thinking, primitive lizard brain stuff, how to get more food today, more status, closer to power, etc. When you build a culture based on material consumption, greed, and biologically impossible situations such as infinite exponential growth, aka capitalism, you promote the sociopathic element to leadership positions, since they are best suited by nature to take those roles on. The followers just follow, I don't really blame the followers much, if you changed their bibles to say that man's task is to cherish and nurture all living things.. .no, never mind, they wouldn't follow that religion, never mind. Guess we pick our religions to suite our tastes in the end. But the followers in the end will follow, all you need to do is watch that documentary, just stroke their emotional triggers the right way and they believe what you got paid to make them believe, but that can change, a few dustbowls, a few scorchers, record rains, storms, etc, and finally, the society must react.

Some actually believe their stuff, because they simply do not understand science, many prefer to follow, or gain status in their niches, some get off on the ability to manipulate as a pure form, you can see that in the interviews, some of the main guys truly enjoy their work.

I believe in the 80s you could have talked somewhat reasonably about the science not being settled, it wasn't. By the late 90s it was.

The 2% cited who do not agree with the science are probably the same 2% that are incompetent and promoted beyond their skillsets you'll find in any field.

The real takeaway for me is that despite all the global chatter about doing something about climate change, we increased co2 added since industrialism set in by 25% in a decade. That means nothing has changed, at all. It's speeded up in fact, all kyoto talk to the contrary.

It was only in discussing this matter with someone fairly smart that I finally realized that it is only by reducing the fossil fuel extraction, ie, the raw totals extracted yearly, that we will slow this down, all cap and trade nonsense ignored. When Norway, one of the most rationally run nations in the world does nothing to slow or stop their carbon fuel exports, you know nobody else will, they don't even need the money at this point, they have a huge sovereign wealth fund.

So hold on, expect nothing to change of substance, my new test is for seeing extraction cease, Canadian oil sands come to mind, any coal anywhere, if that doesn't happen, it's all just talk, and makes in a sense the right correct to scoff. I've seen good criticism of liberalism as wanting to change the words but not ones own behavior, that seems to fit well. Maybe the right is just more honest about their motivations in the end, I don't know.

A paper published in The Holocene shows that 3,200 years ago there were “extraordinary droughts and floods were parts of the [entirely natural] climate variability” in the Northwest region of China. This was during the mid-Holocene Climactic Optimum. It proves that during “safe” Co2 levels, the earth’s climate was erratic; just as it is today.

Modern day meteorologists are increasingly denying supposed evidence of global warming by alarmists. Only 19% of professional meteorologists believe in man-made climate change.

Klaus�Ekart Puls, physicist and meteorologist is one of those doubtful professionals. At the end of 2011, Puls made a presentation on sea levels at the 4th Climate Conference in Munich.

He has come forward to say that the assertion by the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that by regulating CO2, we can “regulate” climate change is “sheer absurdity “.

Puls recalls that he used to just parrot whatever the IPCC told him, but when he investigated the facts behind their claims, he discovered there was no scientific data to support that CO2 or humans were the cause of climate change.

Puls said: �One day I started checking the facts and data � first I started with a sense of doubt but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements.�

According to Puls, climate change is normal as the planet goes through phases of climate warming “many that even far exceeded the extent we see today. But there hasn’t been any warming since 1998. In fact the IPCC suppliers of data even show a slight cooling”.

The IPCC claims that their projecting models indicate that there will be a 0.2 degrees Celsius warming trend per decade to culminate in 2 to 4 degrees Celsius rise by 2100.

Puls says that this assertion is based on “speculative model projections, so-called scenarios - and not prognoses. Because of climate’s high complexity, reliable prognoses just aren’t possible”.

While the CO2 debate lacks real world data entered into the projection models, the IPCC assumes that global warming is based solely on �speculative amplification mechanisms� which do not take into account actual empirical data.

CO2 levels have risen, and yet, the earth is in a cooling phase.

Puls agrees that sea levels have risen, however “it’s important to remember that mean sea level is a calculated magnitude, and not a measured one. There are a great number of factors that influence sea level, e.g. tectonic processes, continental shifting, wind currents, passats, volcanoes. Climate change is only one of ten factors”.

The IPCC says that the glaciers are melting because of climate change. Puls offers scientific observations that contradict their claims. “. . . the Antarctic ice cap has grown both in area and volume over the last 30 years, and temperature has declined. This 30-year trend is clear to see. The Amundsen Scott Station of the USA shows that temperature has been declining there since 1957. 90% of the Earth’s ice is stored in Antarctica, which is one and half times larger than Europe”.

Puls points out that when climate change alarmists cite the Wilkins-Shelf breaking off, they neglect to mention that this is a segregated area of a peninsula . The area totals less than 1% of the entirety of Antarctica. There are also massive westerly wind storms that plague this area. It is home to some of the most violent storms on the planet.

As the planet goes through cycles, ice sheets break off and reform naturally.

The Arctic ice has been measured to be melting and reforming for the past 30 years. Its lowest point was in 2007, and the sea levels were not severely affected, as climate change alarmists would have us believe.

Puls also notes that the deserts are not expanding, but actually the Sahara has been shrinking as an area the size of Germany has been lost in the Northern parts.

While there was devastating famine in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, the cause was corporation’s usurpation of the land to grow crops for biofuel for Europe. Warring factions for control over land also played a significant role.

When governments and multi-national corporations destroy land, it is convenient to blame global warming on the destruction they cause.

When asked if there is anything we can do about climate change, Puls said: “There’s nothing we can do to stop it. Scientifically it is sheer absurdity to think we can get a nice climate by turning a CO2 adjustment knob. Many confuse environmental protection with climate protection. It’s impossible to protect the climate, but we can protect the environment and our drinking water. On the debate concerning alternative energies, which is sensible, it is often driven by the irrational climate debate. One has nothing to do with the other”.

forget to take critical thinking in school?
on 11/30/2012 15:08:15 MST

Sean, you appear to have quoted verbatim something you read somewhere. And even that's wrong, which is kind of normal when you can only offer sources that have no real connection to the real research.

Meteorologists Say Climate Change Is Real and Human Caused - [oops, that's 2012]. As if what some tv weather people believe matters, in the end. But it does help that those employed by the largely corporate news delivery industry, which of course tends to promote the values of its advertisers, even those as a group, no longer can deny reality. And then the page you quote found a single physics professor.

If you can't see how pathetic this is, there's not much I can do, you're clearly grasping at straws, intent on hiding your head in the sand until everything is nice again, and cherry blossoms bloom among the white picket fences, and happy people go off to their jobs in some distant land, driving as far as is needed.

I wonder if that's the same physicist that's been prostituting himself promoting pro corporate agendas for a few decades, I would check, but honestly, why, you aren't saying anything rational, just regurgitating some nonsense you read somewhere, even the main guy in this thread makes more effort than that.

Come on, where's the get up and go, the agressive and active attempts to chip away at the core science by exploiting the layman's generally non existent grasp of how real science and research work? Creating fud, etc. This was really a lackluster effort, almost like you're just going through the motions, half hearted, just a cut and paste, why not quote the source you pasted from?

By the way, just logically, a global cooling period doens't contradict global warming, you can have a cooling trend which is overridden by global warming, in fact, I've read some good arguments that we could be doing that. Current best estimates are now indicating the modeling is wrong, it's far too conservative, and it is looking increasingly like CO2 levels, and other gases, and water vapor, etc, will rise far above any level we are discussing today as a limit, yielding something around a 4 to 6 C change this century.

Really, this is starting to get a bit embarrassing, globally, basically all researchers with any intellectual integrity are aware of what is going on, particularly those working in the far north and south of the globe (you are aware the earth is roundish, right?, and that it's greater than 5000 years old? - hard to know in the US nowadays, the level of pseudoscience and denial has grown pretty extreme in some areas). Personally I don't care, I'm signed up for the rapture, and will sit up there laughing at all the non believers when they scrabble around their toasted planet looking for another fillup for their rusting suvs.

But really, the science is getting good, very good, lots of work being done, huge drilling projects to get million year temp and atmosphere data, all of which basically just confirms reality. That's how science works, it's kind of neat to watch. Then you have the intellectual whores who will say or do anything for a check from their favorite carbon fuel based industry or extractive industry.... and the gulf between the uneducated and fraudulent denialist camp and science based reality is growing wider and wider by the year, at some point you're really going to have to face the music and grow up, or not, up to you. the longer you wait, the more foolish you will look.